Famous Trains: Europe and Africa

by Mike Rozett

1898 Traveling between Moscow and Vladivostok, the
Trans-Siberian Express makes the longest regular train trip in the world
covering 5,778 miles and making ninety-one stops over the course of nine
days. During the Cold War, Westerners on the Trans Siberian could only
travel in compartments, where they were subject to Stalinist propaganda
played on loudspeakers.

1928 In 1928, the Flying Scotsman became the first
non-stop train from King's Cross in London to Edinburgh, Scotland. The
Flying Scotsman was a luxury express train full of amenities, featuring a
hairdressing salon, a Louis the XVI style restaurant and bar, and for a
short time it even had a cinema coach.

1939 The Blue Train has run between Cape Town and
Pretoria, South Africa since 1939 and derives its name from blue
locomotives, railroad cars and leather seats. It was upgraded in 1997 to
include televisions and phones in all of its suites and is still
considered one of the most luxurious trains running today.

1983 The French TGV (train à grande vitesse or
high speed train) is an electric train system. Trains run between Paris
and several other cities, regularly traveling at speeds as high as 186
miles per hour. A modified TGV set a world speed record when it hit 320
miles per hour in trial runs. That record was smashed in 2007, when a
train traveling on a new line from Paris to Strasbourg reached nearly 357
miles per hour.